#LightTheWorld Feed The Hungry

Wednesday, November 22, 2017

As many of you know, my family and I like to pick one special service project to do each year during the holiday season. It looks different each year with what we end up doing, but this year, I'm really excited about what I came up with. I channeled a few of my passions: grocery shopping, good deals, and giving back, to give three families a Thanksgiving dinner, who might not have been able to have a good meal otherwise.

This year especially, my eyes have been opened a lot with what other people have to endure on a daily basis, one of them being loneliness. I think it's so important for those who spend most holidays on their own to know that they're loved and noticed by someone. This year I challenged myself to gift a full Thanksgiving dinner to three families in need with a budget of $100! I loved the challenge of sticking to a strict budget, but also being able to provide a complete meal without having to skip out on anything.

Be sure to watch the video below to see how I stuck to my budget and the exact things that I picked up. But for a breakdown of what this Thanksgiving meal consisted of:

1 8-10lb Turkey Breast

1 Box Stuffing

2 Cans Green Beans

2 Cans Cream of Mushroom Soup

1 Box French Fried Onions

1 Can Cranberry Sauce

1 Dozen Rolls

1 5lb Bag of Potatoes

2 Jars of Gravey

1 Pumpkin Pie

With these items each family will be able to have a Thanksgiving meal with Turkey, Stuffing, Mashed Potatoes, Gravy, Cranberry Sauce, Green Bean Casserole, Rolls, and Pumpkin Pie.

With my $100 budget, I went shopping at Target and spent $78 on all of the food, and then an additional $18 on baskets and cards. I spent a total of $96, and came in $4 under on my budget! It was so much fun to be frugal, and service oriented at the same time!

Each year the LDS Church does a campaign throughout the holiday season called #LightTheWorld, and for Thanksgiving they challenged a bunch of bloggers to #FeedTheHungry in their own unique way. This was what I chose for the campaign, but it was amazing to see some of the big and small things that other bloggers put together as well.

The Light the World campaign is one of the most inspiring parts of the holiday season for me, and I'm excited to see what new things the LDS Church is going to release this year so that we can all have a desire to come unto Christ and feed our neighbors this holiday season.